Strasbourg had to decide whether or not these members of the Abertzale left had a "fair" trial, as the prosecutor explained. Article 6.1 of the European Convention starts as follows: "Every person has the right to have his cause heard in a fair and public manner, within a reasonable time, before an independent and impartial tribunal."

The judgment states that this was an infringement of that article. The two defendants served between six and six and a half years ' imprisonment, as reported by the Ministry of the Interior.

The sentence reads as follows:

The European Court of Human Rights unanimously agreed:

This is a violation of Article 6.1 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to a fair trial).

The complainants have denounced the attitude of the judges who were convicted of the crime of belonging to ETA.

The court has decided on appeal to the penalty that the first plaintiff in this case had previously earned him for several ETA related charges because the judge pointed out the lack of impartiality. This contaminated the entire panel of judges and resulted in a new trial.

The same panel, including the judge presiding over the previous trial, a year later, condemned the five plaintiffs in a second set of proceedings for other charges. Therefore, the complainants objectively justified that their respective judges did not have impartiality.

In this link you can read the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECHR).